220,602 research outputs found
Application Description and Policy Model in Collaborative Environment for Sharing of Information on Epidemiological and Clinical Research Data Sets
BACKGROUND: Sharing of epidemiological and clinical data sets among researchers is poor at best, in detriment of science and community at large. The purpose of this paper is therefore to (1) describe a novel Web application designed to share information on study data sets focusing on epidemiological clinical research in a collaborative environment and (2) create a policy model placing this collaborative environment into the current scientific social context. METHODOLOGY: The Database of Databases application was developed based on feedback from epidemiologists and clinical researchers requiring a Web-based platform that would allow for sharing of information about epidemiological and clinical study data sets in a collaborative environment. This platform should ensure that researchers can modify the information. A Model-based predictions of number of publications and funding resulting from combinations of different policy implementation strategies (for metadata and data sharing) were generated using System Dynamics modeling. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The application allows researchers to easily upload information about clinical study data sets, which is searchable and modifiable by other users in a wiki environment. All modifications are filtered by the database principal investigator in order to maintain quality control. The application has been extensively tested and currently contains 130 clinical study data sets from the United States, Australia, China and Singapore. Model results indicated that any policy implementation would be better than the current strategy, that metadata sharing is better than data-sharing, and that combined policies achieve the best results in terms of publications. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our empirical observations and resulting model, the social network environment surrounding the application can assist epidemiologists and clinical researchers contribute and search for metadata in a collaborative environment, thus potentially facilitating collaboration efforts among research communities distributed around the globe
Accurator: Nichesourcing for Cultural Heritage
With more and more cultural heritage data being published online, their
usefulness in this open context depends on the quality and diversity of
descriptive metadata for collection objects. In many cases, existing metadata
is not adequate for a variety of retrieval and research tasks and more specific
annotations are necessary. However, eliciting such annotations is a challenge
since it often requires domain-specific knowledge. Where crowdsourcing can be
successfully used for eliciting simple annotations, identifying people with the
required expertise might prove troublesome for tasks requiring more complex or
domain-specific knowledge. Nichesourcing addresses this problem, by tapping
into the expert knowledge available in niche communities. This paper presents
Accurator, a methodology for conducting nichesourcing campaigns for cultural
heritage institutions, by addressing communities, organizing events and
tailoring a web-based annotation tool to a domain of choice. The contribution
of this paper is threefold: 1) a nichesourcing methodology, 2) an annotation
tool for experts and 3) validation of the methodology and tool in three case
studies. The three domains of the case studies are birds on art, bible prints
and fashion images. We compare the quality and quantity of obtained annotations
in the three case studies, showing that the nichesourcing methodology in
combination with the image annotation tool can be used to collect high quality
annotations in a variety of domains and annotation tasks. A user evaluation
indicates the tool is suited and usable for domain specific annotation tasks
On-Line Resource Clearinghouse for Rapidly Growing Communities
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, sprawl is among the biggest environmental challenges facing New England, where more than 1,200 acres of open space are lost to development each week. New Hampshire is the fastest growing state in New England, and much of this growth is located within the 42 community coastal watershed served by the New Hampshire Estuaries Project. The Resource Clearinghouse for Rapidly Growing Communities project was created out of an interest in getting community decision makers the information and access to resources that they need to make informed decisions in this challenging time. The clearinghouse is designed to assist efforts to implement smart growth and other strategies to reduce growth impacts on the environment and quality of life. This project resulted from the 2003 Voices of Communities Experiencing Rapid Change Symposium held at the University of New Hampshire.A searchable database, or âresource clearinghouse,â focused on the top ten issues of rapidly growing communities in New Hampshire now exists on-line through a web interface at clearinghouse.unh.edu. This site is easy to use and offers users quick access to a variety of valuable information, including 1) mission and services, contact information, and website links for organizations and agencies that can assist communities with these issues, 2) direct access to ordering information or links to the text of publications and other tools (such as CD-ROMs, other clearinghouses, seminars, etc.), 3) background and contact information for experts on the top ten issues, including University of New Hampshire faculty, and 4) stories from communities that have implemented growth management or smart growth strategies, including process and outcome. This project was made possible through a partnership between the UNH Center for Integrative Regional Problem Solving and Cooperative Extension, in collaboration with the Nashua Regional Planning Commission, the Rockingham Planning Commission, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning, Concord 20/20, GrowSmart Maine, the Southern Maine Regional Planning Commission, Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, the UNH Library, and other departments and programs of the University of New Hampshire. We thank the New Hampshire Estuaries Project for their generous support of this project
Initiating organizational memories using ontology network analysis
One of the important problems in organizational memories is their initial set-up. It is difficult to choose the right information to include in an organizational memory, and the right information is also a prerequisite for maximizing the uptake and relevance of the memory content. To tackle this problem, most developers adopt heavy-weight solutions and rely on a faithful continuous interaction with users to create and improve its content. In this paper, we explore the use of an automatic, light-weight solution, drawn from the underlying ingredients of an organizational memory: ontologies. We have developed an ontology-based network analysis method which we applied to tackle the problem of identifying communities of practice in an organization. We use ontology-based network analysis as a means to provide content automatically for the initial set up of an organizational memory
Exploiting Synergy Between Ontologies and Recommender Systems
Recommender systems learn about user preferences over time, automatically finding things of similar interest. This reduces the burden of creating explicit queries. Recommender systems do, however, suffer from cold-start problems where no initial information is available early on upon which to base recommendations. Semantic knowledge structures, such as ontologies, can provide valuable domain knowledge and user information. However, acquiring such knowledge and keeping it up to date is not a trivial task and user interests are particularly difficult to acquire and maintain. This paper investigates the synergy between a web-based research paper recommender system and an ontology containing information automatically extracted from departmental databases available on the web. The ontology is used to address the recommender systems cold-start problem. The recommender system addresses the ontology's interest-acquisition problem. An empirical evaluation of this approach is conducted and the performance of the integrated systems measured
Exploiting synergy between ontologies and recommender systems
Recommender systems learn about user preferences over time, automatically finding things of similar interest. This reduces the burden of creating explicit queries. Recommender systems do, however, suffer from cold-start problems where no initial information is available early on upon which to base recommendations.Semantic knowledge structures, such as ontologies, can provide valuable domain knowledge and user information. However, acquiring such knowledge and keeping it up to date is not a trivial task and user interests are particularly difficult to acquire and maintain.
This paper investigates the synergy between a web-based research paper recommender system and an ontology containing information automatically extracted from departmental databases available on the web. The ontology is used to address the recommender systems cold-start problem. The recommender system addresses the ontology's interest-acquisition problem. An empirical evaluation of this approach is conducted and the performance of the integrated systems measured
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